Come With Me to Comfort

A lot of people come to the Texas Hill Country specifically to shop for antiques, and they usually go to Fredericksburg, which I've blogged about before. Fredericksburg is a great town, but my favorite Hill Country antique spot is Comfort, about 30 miles W. of Fredericksburg.

One of the best antique shops in Comfort is at Comfort Commons, also a bed and breakfast owned by designers, Jim Lord and Bobby Dent. These two talented men have decorated quite a few Hill Country homes and getaways, and several of those spaces have been featured in magazines and on HGTV over the years.

I was happy to find the following article and photos from Country Living. The bed-and-breakfast was built late in the 1800s, long before the days of central air-conditioning. To combat heat and humidity, renowned architect Alfred Giles (1853-1920) devised double porches in front and back, as well as 20-inch-thick limestone walls. It is precisely these attributes that attracted Jim and Bobby to the former hotel when they spotted it in 1990. "The porches seemed to go on for miles," Jim recalls. Though structurally sound, the interior had been "patched and repatched" over the years. To return it to its earlier grandeur, original details were restored or replaced.

The homeowners' penchant for the warm colors and worn surfaces of painted furniture is evident in the dining room, where c. 1870 Georgia ladder-back chairs with cowhide seats surround an 1880s scrub-top pine table. A pair of 1850s Windsor arrow-back chairs anchor either end of the table.



I love the buttery yellow kitchen cabinets and beadboard ceiling. Even though the granite countertop is a contemporary touch, it doesn't take away from the vintage look and feel of the rest of the kitchen.


I also love this chippy, yellow vitrine.


Have you ever seen such an extensive ironstone pitcher collection? Lord and Dent have displayed it so effectively, too.









One of these days, I'm going to get back over to Comfort and take pics of the outdoor spaces behind Comfort Commons. If you've had a long day of shopping, just steal away back there and rest up a bit.